Winfrey Trial Motion
Deadline Announced

AMARILLO — A federal judge here has set late June as the deadline for responses to motions in the second lawsuit brought against Oprah Winfrey by Texas cattlemen.

U.S. District Judge Mary Lou Robinson has granted an extension for responses by both defendants and plaintiffs in the second lawsuit over remarks aired by Winfrey and vegetarian activist Howard Lyman casting American beef in a bad light. Both sides are to file responses by June 26.

The judge has ordered Winfrey and her attorneys to file their response to the plaintiffs’ motion to move the second lawsuit from federal court back to state district court in Dumas, where it was initially filed. She also ordered a response from the plaintiffs by the same date.

The suits revolve around remarks made by Winfrey and Lyman on Winfrey's April 16, 1996, television show which cattlemen claim were disparaging and caused a dramatic drop in live cattle prices.

A lawsuit filed in June 1996, by the owners of feedyards was moved to federal court. The second lawsuit was filed in April of this year, two years to the day after the disputed comments aired.

Earlier this year, a jury in federal court in Amarillo found for Winfrey and company in a lawsuit brought by the owners of several feedyards in the Texas Panhandle. That verdict came after Judge Robinson denied plaintiffs the use of the so-called "veggie libel" law under which they originally sued. Her ruling left them with a much more difficult burden of proof, including issues of "standing," and gave the jury little option in the end.

In April, the people who owned the cattle being fed in those feedyards filed suit in state district court in Dumas, about 40 miles north of Amarillo. Attorneys for Winfrey and Lyman moved the suit to Robinson’s court in Amarillo, where they had enjoyed their previous victory.

On May 7, they asked the judge to dismiss the new suit, claiming the cattle feeders failed to state a claim for false disparagement of perishable food products, failed to meet specific constitutional elements of speech-based injurious falsehood claims, and failure to state claims for negligence. Winfrey's lawyers also say in their motion that the state's False Disparagement of Perishable Food Product Law is unconstitutional.

The cattle feeders are trying to move the suit back to state court.